November 08, 2014

I definitely remember watching this - all those years ago! What a terrible shame that some bean-counter destroyed many of these great performances. Of course the BBC did quite a bit of that also,destroying many tapes by The Beatles and others. Lost forever.

The Prince’s Mollycoddling will
be aired as part of the ABC’s two-part Countdown: Do Yourself a Favour
documentary, starting next weekend.

Breaking with usual royal
tradition, viewers will be amused when Prince Charles recreates the legendary
blooper reel from the 1977 interview.

The future King of England
stumbles over his words, gets man-handled by an aide, references Meldrum’s
swearing and asks for a glass of water.

“I certainly learned some
interesting new Australian words from Mr Meldrum and if he could have read my
mind he would have learned some interesting new English words from me,” Charles
stated in the pre-recorded video.

He also joked “There is an old
showbusiness saying which warns never to work with animals or children. But
nobody prepared me for Molly Meldrum. Was it really 40 years ago? It only seems
like yesterday. I wish it were tomorrow, I’d cancel it.”

The message was kept top secret
from Meldrum until this morning.

“The world has gone mad!,” a
shocked Meldrum said after watching the footage.“It’s truly unbelievable. They’ve
even recreated the moment where (Countdown director) Ted Emery was pushing me
off camera. It was surreal.

Meldrum said he was “floored” by Prince Charles’s
tribute.

“I can’t quite believe it
happened. The way he’s done it is so flattering, even with someone impersonating
Ted Emery whacking me, copying my mistakes, asking for the water,” he
said.“It has really floored me. Just
this week someone came up with the Countdown Silver Jubilee album and I
signed it ‘With apologies to Prince Charles’.

The program spent a year
negotiating with Clarence House for Prince Charles to record a message
celebrating Countdown’s 40th anniversary.

However they were not expecting
the wicked sense of humour on display.

“Initially we were hoping to get
him to record his best wishes for the 40th anniversary of Countdown,
hopefully with a few on-camera comments about that 1977 encounter with Molly,”
Do Yourself A Favour’s producer Jeremy Boylen said.

“When they agreed to him
recording a message I sent some information and a few potential light hearted
remarks for his consideration. But he had far grander comedic plans. He really
went to a lot of trouble. It’s a very warm-hearted roasting of Molly, a very
affectionate parody of his sometimes stumbling interview technique.”

Meldrum was caught on tape
swearing after Prince Charles had left the South Melbourne studio where the
interview was recorded. The expletive-laded outtakes leaked on YouTube several
years ago.

Meldrum had been told the
interview, and the outtakes, had been seen by not only Charles, but Princess
Diana and their two sons Harry and William.

“Apparently it’s a bit of a
running joke at Buckingham Palace,” Meldrum said.The Countdown documentary
clarifies the Prince did not hear any of Meldrum’s more salty language at the
time.

“The Prince had left the building
by that stage but later became aware of Molly’s swearing on YouTube,” Boylen
said. “You’re left with the impression the whole royal family is still amused by
the encounter with Molly. The Prince of Wales must have done countless
interviews over the years, but this appears to be one he has vivid and fond
memories of.”

Boylen enlisted the help of
former South Australian premier Mike Rann in his capacity as Australian High
Commissioner to the United Kingdom to help secure the Prince’s
involvement.

“Mr Rann raised the matter
informally with two of the Prince’s aides and vouched for the production team
behind the program,” Boylen said. “I sent the Prince’s communication team the
original Countdown footage and some photos of Molly with Prince
Charles.

“The Australian High Commissioner
had a meeting with Prince Charles at the Prince’s London residence Clarence
House and they had a pretty animated and humorous discussion about
Countdown and the Prince’s place in Countdown history. I believe
it became clear the Prince had very clear and vivid memories of his encounter
with Molly and he was told what a memorable moment it was to a lot of
Australians. I can only assume he has a soft spot for Australia, the Australian
sense of humour and Countdown.”

As well as actual royalty, the program features musical
royalty including U2, Kylie Minogue, Bjorn Ulvaeus from ABBA, Rod Stewart, Kiss
and Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran reliving their memories of
Countdown.

Episode one focuses on the 1970s,
with the second part concentrating on the 1980s.The first episode features a holy
grail for music fans, with footage from the first episode of Countdown
from November 1974 which was long thought erased.Producers have included Sherbet
performing Silvery Moon in episode one of the Countdown
documentary.

“We don’t have the whole first
episode, but we found that lovely footage of Sherbet,” Boylen said. “They were
broadcasting in black and white for the first eight episodes, but they were
being recorded in colour. One or two of those songs have turned up.”

Sadly, a rash of cost-cutting at
the ABC saw many of the tapes of early Countdown episodes erased and
re-used to save money. Most of the episodes from 1974 to 1978 were lost,
including several early AC/DC performances.

Ironically AC/DC had offered to
pay handsomely for the Countdown footage when putting together a DVD
compilation, but were told most of the performances no longer existed on
tape.

“From my research there were
hundreds of episodes erased,” Boylen says. “It’s a pity. They erased them for
budget reasons, they needed the tape, but at that time there was no
understanding as to what a pop cultural resource those Countdown episodes
would have been and that 40 years later we’d still care about
Countdown.”

A companion CD is being
released to coincide with the documentary, which follows the release of
Meldrum’s autobiography The Never, Um,
Ending Story.